Join us for the twenty-first Annual Children’s Environmental Health Awards Celebration and the eleventh annual Children’s Environmental Health Day!
This evening is dedicated to honoring extraordinary leaders who are advancing science, policy, advocacy, and creativity to ensure all children can grow up in safe and healthy environments. We’ll come together to recognize inspiring champions, uplift youth voices, and strengthen connections across generations and build our children’s environmental health community.
October 8, 2026
6 -9 pm ET
Dockmaster Building at District Wharf
101 District Square SW, Washington, DC 20024
What:
This festive and high-energy event is open to all members of the children’s environmental health community.
Join us for:
Networking, cocktails, and a buffet dinner featuring seasonal fare
Inspiring award presentations and remarks
Collaborative and interactive artwork reflecting on the past decades of the children’s environmental health movement
Together, we’ll honor the vision, courage, and dedication of this year’s leaders — and leave re-energized to continue building a healthier, more just future for all children.
When:
This event is a part of the broader commemoration of Children’s Environmental Health Day, on October 8th. The event will begin at 6 pm and we’ll say farewells at 9 pm.
Where:
We’re delighted to host this year’s celebration at The Dockmaster Building at The Wharf in Washington, D.C. The Dockmaster Building is located at the very end of District Pier. It is accessible, with an elevator.
The Wharf is one block from Waterfront Metro station on the green line and an 8-minute walk from L’Enfant Plaza Metro Station on the Blue, Orange, Silver, Green, and Yellow lines. The Wharf Neighborhood Shuttle carries visitors between The Wharf, SW Duck Pond, L’Enfant Plaza Metro, and the National Mall. There are three parking garages near the Wharf with limited parking. It’s highly advisable to take the Metro, Wharf Shuttle, or walk, if possible. Learn more about getting to the Wharf.
Student
Environmental Activist
Founder and Executive Director, HydroHarvest
Stella Hong is a seventeen-year-old environmental activist from Vienna, Virginia dedicated to combating food insecurity through gardening. As the founder and executive director of HydroHarvest, she works to advance sustainable agriculture in her community through hydroponics. HydroHarvest builds sustainable hydroponic gardens for food insecure families, which are made out of reused materials and distributed at food banks throughout Greater Washington, empowering families to grow their own food sustainably. HydroHarvest also hosts seed planting workshops, educating underserved youth on gardening and nutrition. Furthermore, HydroHarvest aims to reduce food waste through their gleaning program, where excess produce from local gardens is donated to food banks. Thus far, HydroHarvest has engaged 450+ youth, distributed 170+ lbs of produce, and created 130+ hydroponic toolkits.
Beyond HydroHarvest, Stella is fascinated with research in agricultural nanotechnology, presenting her work on green-synthesized nanoparticles at Virginia’s State Science Fair. Stella was also a part of the 2025 Future Blue Youth Council, the student advising council of the world’s largest environmental youth program for the creative arts. In her free time, she enjoys running cross-country and crocheting. Stella is honored to receive the CEHN NOW Youth Leadership Award, she is excited to continue advocating for equitable access to sustainable food.
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Morehouse School of Medicine
Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine
Director, Break the Cycle Program, Pediatric Environmental Specialty Unit (PEHSU), Emory University
Medical Director, The Rubin Center for Autism and Developmental Pediatrics
President and Founder, Break the Cycle of Health Disparities, Inc.
Dr. Rubin is originally from South Africa, where he attended medical school and trained in pediatrics, then he came to the US first to Case Western Reserve in Cleveland Ohio, then to Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Massachusetts, and is now at Morehouse School of Medicine and Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Rubin is a Developmental Pediatrician who provides pediatric and interdisciplinary coordinated care for children with developmental disabilities and their families and is the primary editor of 3 editions of a textbook addressing health care for children and adults with developmental disabilities.
In 2004, he founded the non-profit Break the Cycle of Health Disparities, Inc. and started the annual Break the Cycle of Children’s Environmental Health Disparities program in partnership with the Southeast PEHSU to raise awareness among university students of children’s environmental health disparities and to cultivate future leaders to address these challenges. To date there have been 21 annual programs with over 200 students from over 50 different academic departments in over 20 states in the USA as well as from 6 countries in Latin American and 2 Countries in Africa. In 2024 he started a Break the Cycle Africa program now in its 3rd year. To date, there have been more than 200 papers published in international journals as well as 20 books in a Public Health Series with Nova Publishers. The program received The Children’s Environmental Health Excellence Award from the US EPA in 2016.
He serves on national and international committees, relating to children with developmental disabilities, children’s environmental health, and health disparities in the context of social, economic, environmental and political determinants of health, with a goal to reduce children’s health disparities and promote health equity for all children.
Dr. Rubin’s personal mission is to work in collaboration with others to improve the health and well-being of children and adults with developmental disabilities and on reducing children’s health disparities and promoting health equity for all children, locally, nationally, and globally in the context of environmental and social justice and in the face climate change.
Manager, Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) at Northern Arizona University
Project Director for the Indoor Air Quality in Tribal Communities Environmental Education and Outreach Program
Mansel joined the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP) in 1998 as the Senior Program Coordinator for the Tribal Environmental Education Outreach Program (TEEOP) at Northern Arizona University. He works with professionals, educators, and students to show how mathematics, science, and technology can be applied to understanding local and global environmental issues. He also organizes support for tribes and schools on Indoor Air Quality.
Mansel completed a BS in chemistry and an MS in chemical engineering. During fourteen years of military service in the US Army Chemical Corps, he held a variety of positions, including Platoon Leader, Company Commander, Chemical Operations Officer, Chemist, and Chemical Engineer. Following his military service, Mansel taught chemistry on the Navajo Nation for six years, exploring issues such as uranium mining and milling and solid waste management with his high school classes. He was able to help students see the connections between math, science, and local community issues.
Principal Advisor and Adjunct Professor, Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education at Stanford University
Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Thrive Center on Children, Families and Communities, Georgetown University
Co-founder, Georgetown Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues
Director, Early Opportunities, LLC
Author, Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support Families and Build Communities
Co-editor, Beacon of Hope: The Promise of Early Head Start
For more than 50 years, Joan has dedicated her work to assuring the healthy development of young children and support for their families in the US and around the world. Currently she serves as a Principal Advisor and Adjunct Professor at the Center on Early Childhood, Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and a Senior Scholar and Adjunct Professor, Thrive Center on Children, Families and Communities, Georgetown University. She is the co-founder of the Georgetown Collaborative on Global Children’s Issues. In addition, since 2011 she has been directing Early Opportunities, serving as an advisor to a range international organizations and to philanthropy and focusing on linkages between early childhood and a sustainable environment.
Joan has served in several positions in the public sector including as the first Deputy Assistant Secretary for Early Childhood Development (2009-2011) in the Obama Administration, and as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy and External Affairs in Administration for Children and Families, USDHHS and the first Commissioner of the Child Care Bureau among other positions (l993-1998) during the Clinton Administration. She was the founding chair of the Birth to Five Policy Alliance (now the Alliance for Early Success) and the inspiration behind Global Leaders for Young Children, which has been supporting the next generation of early childhood leaders around the world since 2004. She is the author of Time to Care: Redesigning Child Care to Promote Education, Support Families and Build Communities and Co-editor of Beacon of Hope: The Promise of Early Head Start.
This celebration honors advocates for their leadership on behalf of children’s environmental health, equity, and climate action and justice. CEHN honors these incredible leaders each year at an awards ceremony in Washington DC on Children’s Environmental Health Day.
The Child Health Advocate Awards honor outstanding children’s environmental health leaders (age 22 and up) in Policy, Science, Community, Business, and Arts/Media. These child health champions have gone above and beyond to create systemic change, protecting children from environmental hazards.
The NOW Youth Leadership Award was created as part of the Children’s Environmental Health Network’s 20th-anniversary celebration in 2012, in honor of Executive Director Nsedu Obot Witherspoon. This award honors a young person who has demonstrated exceptional environmental health leadership–protecting human health, especially of our most vulnerable populations.
